Forget about trying to retrain everyone for new jobs
in the information economy, or whatever they’re calling it these days. The
information age means the end
of mass wage labour (see below for background). The new economy
will never replace all the blue and white collar jobs eliminated by
information technology because the whole point of information
technology is to reduce human labour. And forget about
political theatre like workfare. Whenever it’s been tried, it’s
failed. Your aim is to increase the purchasing power of unemployed or
under-employed Canadians. No other force, except government, is capable of
distributing more broadly the gains that technology makes possible.
The failure of government to do this will result in a society of
haves and have-nots, a direction in which we are swiftly
moving.

If an unstable society consisting of the wealthy few
and the impoverished many is to be avoided, there are only two realistic courses of
action that are open to you: provide the citizen with a basic
income—preferably every citizen, even the richest Canadian—or
massively increase social spending. Direct
assistance or indirect assistance, take your choice. Either way
you’re going to have to take from the rich and give to the
not-so-rich. However, providing income to the unemployed and under-employed
is an excellent way to stimulate demand and keep the economy from
running flat. You could, for example, give income vouchers
for volunteer work and any kind of non-profit work that creates
social capital. You might also consider increasing government revenue by
taxing the profits of currency speculators. Better still, why not make our tax system
progressive in practice as well as in theory by closing the 100 odd tax
loop holes provided for the benefit of wealthy Canadians?
Almost every tax inquiry over the
past 35 years has demonstrated that the tax system
rewards the well-to-do and penalizes the middle and
lower-income classes. But if tax reform seems too daunting to
begin with, at least tax the wealthy indirectly by allowing
moderate inflation. In 1975 U.S. economist and Nobel
laureate Robert Solow outlined in detail how the costs of
recession were much greater than the costs of inflation.
By raising interest rates to control inflation, instead of
statutory (i.e. government mandated) bank reserves, The Bank of Canada
reinforces inequality in two ways: high interest rates
disproportionately reward the rich and the
resulting unemployment disproportionately punishes
the poor. Compared with the interest rate, which is a blunt instrument
that impacts everything in the economy that moves, a variable
reserve requirement would function like a surgical tool. Too bad Brian
Mulroney quietly eliminated mandatory reserves
as part of a furtive bailout of Canadian banks in 1991. That means
you will have to reinstate them.

But if you really wanted to inaugurate an era of
economic justice, then you must take back the control of credit from the
chartered banks, thereby de-privatising the money supply and
stopping the debt engine. A government can just as easily
lend interest-free money into existence by borrowing from
its own bank as borrow interest-bearing money into existence
by going cap in hand to privately owned companies known as chartered
banks—which at present it mainly does. (Note that whatever the interest rate,
government borrowing from the Bank of Canada is always effectively
interest-free because the government, as sole shareholder, pays
back the interest to itself as a dividend.) It’s about time that
democratic countries put this sly form of economic
exploitation behind them.

As of the year 2000, the richest
one percent of the population owned
25 percent (42 percent in the US) of the national wealth.
Every instinct of decency and common sense should tell us that
this is shameful. It’s also a cancer in our democracy. The
first responsibility of a democratically elected
government is to resist concentrated economic power.
Only by doing this can a functioning democracy be preserved, and the common
good prevail over the economic interests of a few people. Good
luck!

At the beginning of the 20th century almost 40 percent
of people in Canada and the United States worked on the land. In 1850 it was
about 60 percent. Today about 3 percent do, and thanks to technology they can
produce all the food we need as well as vast quantities for
export. In fact, governments have to pay farmers not to produce
because their productive capacity is so great.

What has happened in agriculture in terms of replacing
men by machines will shortly happen in manufacturing and the
service industries. It’s already
happening. Have you ever seen pictures of automobile
assembly lines where the workers are not humans but robots?
Politicians talk hopefully of retraining the work force as
“knowledge workers.” They’re dreamers. Having created the
problem of unemployment, advanced technology is hardly
likely to solve it. Even if the economy could create
enough jobs in the information sector—which it most certainly can’t
since the whole thrust of the information revolution is towards
highly skilled, highly paid, small, elite work forces using
increasingly sophisticated machines—many people are not
intellectually or temperamentally suited to be
knowledge workers. So where does that leave the forty, sixty,
perhaps eighty percent of us who are not worth exploiting even
for the minimum wage? (Don’t suppose these figures are an
exaggeration. One quarter of the population may indeed be able
to produce all of our goods and services just as 3 percent produces
all of our food. One chilling trend-report suggests that by the
year 2020 we will see the elimination of the blue collar factory
worker from the world.)

There’s no use in complaining about the moral and
spiritual blindness of our leaders. John Kennedy may have mused
about politics being a noble profession, but since when have
moral rectitude and spiritual vision been primary qualifications
for a career in politics? The simple fact is that most
politicians have to lie to a greater or lesser degree in order to
get elected, and thus a lack of truthfulness sets the tone of political life. However,
politicians respond very well to pressure: pressure from big
business, big money, special interests, and—hooray!—public
opinion. And public opinion includes you, your family, your
friends, and anyone you can bring round to an informed point of
view.

Very often, in human affairs, the sensible course of
action is only chosen after all other alternatives have been exhausted. So
it may be here. As we pass from the industrial age, the age of mass labour,
to the information age, the age of elite labour (see notes
on The End of Work by Jeremy Rifkin),
global economic collapse, political turmoil, and massive social unrest are
very real possibilities. However, those who can conquer
inertia and indifference can do their part to help ease
this dangerous passage. One way would be to sign and date the following
letter (or write your own) and mail it to both Mr. Harper (no postage)
and the premier of your province. You may even want to run off some copies
and try to convince two friends to do
likewise—much like a pyramid scheme. If everyone who sent this
letter convinced two other people to each send a letter and
convince two friends in their turn, the number of letters
bombarding our elected leaders would reach 33 million after just
24 cycles!